Little Distractions
by BlueSkyScribe
Summary: Brakeline is all for nostalgia. Knockdown isn't so sure gritty fair food is worth remembering. (Shattered Glass versions of Knock Out and Breakdown, eating food of dubious nutritional value and generally being fluffy. Same universe as "Life in Glass Houses.")


**A/N:** These are the Shattered Glass (alternate universe) versions of Knock Out and Breakdown, who also appear in "Life in Glass Houses." This is a story from early on in the war, before Knockdown became CMO of the Decepticon flagship.

* * *

"Hey Knockdown, I—oof!"

"Look out for the crates," Knockdown said, not looking up from the datapad he was working on.

Brakeline rubbed his shin ruefully, looking from the boxes stacked around the room to the blue medic.

It wasn't like Knockdown to clutter up his workspace, especially since the _Star Seeker _didn't have a big med bay to begin with. It was the second-smallest of the mining ships. "What's with this scrap?"

"The captain has been _resupplying,"_ he said with the faintest hint of sarcasm. A hoarder by nature, Captain Ratbat frequently oversupplied—often on non-essentials that were "a real bargain"—to the extent that the goods overflowed out of the ship's tiny cargo bay and were stashed wherever there was free space.

Like the med bay.

"What'd he get this time?" Brakeline pried at the lid of a crate.

"No idea." Knockdown put the datapad down and looked up at the hulking silver grounder. "Why are you here?" The words might have seemed brusque, but his tone and expression were simply expectant. Brakeline rarely came into the med bay while Knockdown was working.

"I've gotta go scout out that new planet. Might be energon there. Won't be back for a couple days."

Brakeline was treated to one of those expressions only he ever got to see—that porcelain white face with both brows drawn down and furrowed together, lips only hinting at a grimace as Knockdown made a tiny sound of dissatisfaction. It was fleeting, smoothed away the next moment by Knockdown's customary calm.

"All right," the cyan jet said, brushing a hand down Brakeline's arm, gripping his hand before turning back to his work. "Thank you for letting me know."

Brakeline nodded but didn't leave. He went went back to digging his thick fingers under the lid of a box. From the corner of his yellow optics, he watched the cyan Seeker leaning forward in his chair, as though he was about to fall right into the datapad.

"When are you going to be done?"

"Why? You'll be gone."

"Don't want you working too late."

"I won't."

"Promise?"

"Go away." Knockdown waved a hand towards the door. Instead of accepting the dismissal, the huge grounder captured the slender fingers in his own, pulling the jet out of his seat and gathering him to his chassis.

"Brakeline." Knockdown sounded exasperated, but his hands settled on the larger bot's chest, resting there a minute until he pushed off. "All right. I need to work. You need to work. When you get back we'll—" He cut off with a hint of a squawk as the silver mech picked him up by the waist, hoisting him onto a broad shoulder. _"Brakeline."_

"Something wrong?" he asked innocently.

_"Really."_ Knockdown clutched at a towering shoulder spar, one heel digging into the larger bot's neck-well to steady himself. But there was a hint of a smile on his face.

"C'mon doc, aren't you the least big curious what's in here?" He leaned forward to open a crate.

"Don't change the subject." Knockdown braced his lower winglets behind the grounder's shoulderline to avoid falling off. Brakeline, meanwhile, blinked at the grid of tiny, flat boxes inside the crate in owlish confusion, then grinned widely.

"Can you believe it? Look at this!" Brakeline dug out one of the little purple boxes, passing it up to Knockdown.

The jet kept one arm curled around Brakeline's shoulder spur as he turned the box over in his hand. It was made of the flimsiest grade of metal, the sides pressing inwards slightly even at the medic's light touch. A white cloud with stylized rain falling from it was sloppily stamped on the purple-stained metal.

"You recognize it, right?" Brakeline said, pouring more of the boxes into his enormous hands.

"Naturally. What I don't know is why you're excited to discover our captain wasted money on an entire crate of Triads."

"Aw, don't be like that." Brakeline picked out a second box. "C'mon, let's open 'em. On the count of three."

"Oh . . . fine." Knockdown dug his claws into the top of the box and looked at his mate.

"One … two … three!" The thin metal packaging was torn open. Brakeline nudged a crumbing, brown-tinted disk into his hand. "I got 'rock'."

"Lucky you. Mine contained a cake composed of a green, gritty, chalk-like substance. Perhaps the Autobots are trying to poison us."

"Knockdooown, come ooon, tell me what you got."

"I already told you it was the green kind … Oh, fine. 'Acid rain.'" He waggled the greenish circle of dehydrated energon in front of Brakeline's helm, revealing a haphazard imprint of a raindrop. "I got 'acid rain.'"

"Ha! Rock _beats_ acid rain!" Brakeline grabbed it out of his hand and tossed both tiny cakes into his mouth, crunching happily.

With one hand still anchored to Brakeline's shoulder, Knockdown craned around to stare. "You're actually eating them. I don't believe it."

"Lighten up, Downy, it's just candy."

"They sold these at _street fairs_. When was the last time they held one of those, do you think? A million years ago? Two million?"

"Candy doesn't go bad," Brakeline insisted, pressing another box into Knockdown's hand. "So they had Triads at celebrations in Vos too, huh? That's nice. Like, no matter where you were on Cybertron—"

"—you still had the same flavorless, completely nutritionless, pressed energon cakes on your holidays." Knockdown plucked the flap of the box open. This time the little treat was off-white. "Turbo-badger."

"Awww, I got rock again … turbo-badger digs through rock. Here ya go."

"Keep it."

"But you won."

"I don't care."

"Winner gets to eat both of 'em, that's the rule."

"Gets to, or has to?"

"C'mon, Downy—"

"You heard me say these were millions of years old, yes?"

"They taste exactly the same, I promise."

"You are not helping your case." But Knockdown finally acquiesced. The Triads were indeed just as he remembered. Dry, gritty, and tasting of artificial mercury flavoring. Awful.

As a youngling he'd wandered the noisy, brightly festooned fairs with the rest of his cohort, all of them staring wide-eyed when the hawkers had gestured them over and poured Triads into their hands for free, teaching the young jets how to play rain-rock-badger.

Now he cynically wondered if it had been kindness on the part of the sellers or if they'd cleverly been seeding the market. Everyone _did _buy Triads at the fair, because they always had. Because despite the horrid aftertaste and the questionable ingredients, they brought back memories of smooth banners unfurling in the wind, music pouring from the towers, jets dancing on the streets or on the wind.

Happy times …

"Play again?" He leaned forward, holding out his hand for another box.

When Thrust entered the med bay, some hours later, he found Brakeline stretched out, groaning, on the floor. Knockdown was facefirst on one of the medical berth with one arm clutching his stomach. And sea of crumpled, purple boxes littered the room.


End file.
